\u201cMany of those workers have said to me, communicated \u2014 stay out until you get the funding for the wall. These federal workers want the wall,\u201d<\/em> Trump told reporters in the White House on Christmas Day. \u201cThey understand what\u2019s happening. They want border security.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The shutdown formally began on Saturday, after Trump refused to sign a budget approved by the House because it failed to include a provision for the $5.7 billion necessary for substantive work to begin on the president\u2019s signature project.<\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n Despite surveys revealing that the measure is unpopular, and with the majority of respondents blaming Trump for the brinkmanship, the US president has stuck to his guns.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t tell you when the government is going to reopen,\u201d<\/em> he said. \u201cI can tell you it\u2019s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they\u2019d like to call it. I\u2019ll call it whatever they want. But it\u2019s all the same thing. It\u2019s a barrier from people pouring into our country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n 800,000 of 2.1 million federal employees have been affected, with nine of 15 government departments being officially de-funded. Workers are not paid in full while on leave, though are customarily compensated with backdated pay once the shutdown is over.<\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s assertions, a survey by the National Treasury Employees Union of 1,500 of its members found that 85 percent were not happy with the shutdown, while the head of the union called this, the second shutdown in less than a year, a \u201ctravesty.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The shutdown will last at least until the next time Congress meets \u2013on Thursday\u2013 but neither side has conceded ground, and Democrat leaders in both chambers have said that they will not allow Trump’s wall to be built under any circumstances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US president insists he won\u2019t halt the government shutdown until Congress provides funding for the Mexico wall, and also claims he has the support of many federal workers, who have been furloughed while the standoff continues. \u201cMany of those workers have said to me, communicated \u2014 stay out until you get the funding for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":390412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-390513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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